Dear canary,

I told my mom about the incident that happened in the 5th grade and my mom would let me stay at home. She did not know what to do but she allowed me to skip school for that reason.

This shows that your mother unfortunately didn’t know how to handle problems like this. She (or your father) should have gone to school and talked to the teacher, and also talked to you to soothe your anxiety. Parents are adults and one of their main roles is to emotionally regulate the child – to soothe and comfort the child, to reduce the child’s anxiety, because the child is unable to do that for themselves. It seems your parents didn’t have those skills and would rather let you to “regulate” yourself by avoiding uncomfortable situations. It seems you didn’t have a proper background, a proper safety net to fall on in stressful situations, and that’s why you likely developed anxiety.

When you were bullied in the 6th grade, did your parents know about that at all? And when you finally stood up for yourself and told that girl that she was rude (but then ran away crying) – did your parents know about it?